Mixed Emotions About L.A.--and Where It’s Going

Last Monday made me hopeful, frustrated and angry about Los Angeles, all at once.

At lunch, I had a sense of excitement listening to a mayoral candidate talk about his vision for the city. I left eager to hear more about next year’s election.

My mood, however, changed to puzzlement and nagging doubt about the future when, in midafternoon, I paused to watch the Los Angeles school board bicker about what’s best for our kids. The caustic, senseless arguing made me grateful I don’t regularly cover such events anymore.

Then, shortly after 5 o’clock, still troubled by what I saw at the school board meeting, I ran into a colleague in the Times lobby. “They’ve called a tactical alert at Normandie and Florence,” he said. “There’s trouble down there.”

Dammit.

*

I had decided to spend the day away from the office, meeting people. Sometimes, reporters spend too much time at their desks listening to themselves. Hitting the streets is a good way to listen to real folks and real ideas.

My first stop was a luncheon hosted by Emma Schafer, who runs the Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum. It’s an opportunity for corporate types and other power brokers with an interest in government to mingle with policy-makers. The meetings are intimate, allowing the 40 or so in attendance to leisurely chat and exchange business cards with the invited speaker. It seemed like a good place to hear Michael Woo, 41, make his case for being mayor.

“The city has gotten off track,” the Hollywood-area councilman said. Sounding like Bill Clinton, Woo proclaimed that old-style politics were dead in L.A. “The time has come for a new generation of leadership,” he said.

He talked about revitalizing the city’s economy and image, suggesting an “I L.A.” advertising campaign. He said race relations must be improved. He recommended that the new mayor use the office as a “bully pulpit” to effect change.

Not all his answers impressed. When asked about additional police officers, he briefly responded but then went into a longer discussion of other spending priorities. The answer was unfocused but the crowd’s interest didn’t waver. Some, like Takafumi Kitagawa, Japan’s consul in L.A., nodded in agreement as they listened to Woo.

After the luncheon, I told Schafer the mayor’s campaign would be more interesting than I first thought.

*

I was humming the tune “I N.Y.” when I got to L.A. school district headquarters. One look at the somber faces in the board room and I stopped being musical.

The mood was tense, befitting the problems facing the nation’s second-largest school district. Money is scarce. Classes have been cut. So have salaries. And the teachers are threatening to strike.

Chief financial officer Robert Booker had the closest thing to good news: He was no longer projecting a deficit in the $3-billion budget, now that the board’s decision to cut teacher salaries had been upheld in court.

Booker was then asked to repeat himself for the benefit of Channel 56, the school district’s TV station that was broadcasting the meeting.

Emotions boiled over quickly when the seven board members debated a last-minute item on their agenda: eliminating eight school days to let employees apply for special unemployment benefits. It was clear that the votes were there to make the cut. But the board was sharply divided, and in a mood to argue.

“There’s no perfect way out of this problem,” Julie Korenstein said. “This will make no sense to parents,” Leticia Quezada said. “Don’t go around pushing the ‘anger’ button,” Warren Furutani said. “We need to get the district going in the right direction,” said another.

Quezada sighed audibly. Korenstein curtly replied to comments made by Quezada. From the audience, gadfly regulars Jules Kimmet and Howard Watts screamed, “Hypocrites!” Furutani mockingly asked Watts if he had said something.

I left the room frustrated at the cost-cutting that seemed inevitable, and perplexed at the rancor plainly evident.

*

When I learned about the tactical alert, I drove to Normandie and Florence. I was angry all the way there. Not again. Haven’t we had enough? Haven’t we learned anything?

Once there, cops told me to get lost. So did some residents. I walked around for about 45 minutes but the night’s unrest was over. There was no riot to report.

As I walked back to my car, I encountered one young man looking for TV cameras. “I wanna be on CNN,” he said.

I wanted to slug him.